


A God with Tousled Hair

by Fantine_Black



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: "Ripper" Rupert Giles, Angst and Romance, Boys In Love, British Character, British English, Dark Magic, Demons Made Them Do It, Domestic Violence, Drabble, Drug Abuse, Exorcisms, Hurt/Comfort, Latin, Love/Hate, M/M, Magic, Old Gods, Power Dynamics, Rituals, Violent Sex, Watchers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5383430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fantine_Black/pseuds/Fantine_Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan hasn't always worshipped Chaos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A God with Tousled Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Addiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852) by [kindkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/pseuds/kindkit). 



There are times when he fights back. Times where there’s no more instinct, or reason, just naked self - preservation. Ripper’s a trained fighter, and he’s been trained to kill.

When Ethan fights him, his eyes go cold. There’s no more joy and lust; he now wants pain, tears, contrition. And fuck, it hurts – like Hell, in fact- but Ethan gets to see the sun rise.

It’s not like that most days. Most days it’s sleepy sex in the bedroom or rough sex in the shower- Ripper doesn’t like it if Ethan gets up first – followed by eggs, tea, toast and two aspirin for Ethan. Sometimes, Ripper comes to stand behind Ethan, hands laid loosely around his hips, head on his shoulder.

“We’re good, yeah?” he whispers to him, and Ethan says yes, because there’s nothing else to say and he still loves kissing Ripper.

He doesn’t blame him. To be taught to kill and then stuck in a waistcoat- that’s bound to warp a man, and his love will bear the burden. Tale as old as time.

He thinks that to himself, with every ice pack, every new tube of Arnica cream. The words have worn thin, frayed at the edges. Soon they will rip.

He smiles.

Perversity, too, is not without pleasures. There’s beauty in suffering, as all martyrs know.

“Ethan...”

He’s always had that tone, even in the first days. Always spoke to him like he was lesser, he was weak.

Ethan doesn’t fear weakness. It’s a tool like any other, wielded well.

But the balance has shifted.

“Ethan!”

There will be screams now, and slaps, for something, for nothing. He used to goad him –s’ that all you got, Watcher boy? – guiding Ripper’s beautiful destruction. He’d get his revenge, anyhow. Sometimes he even started with the revenge.

But since Eyghon, it’s relentless. Being shoved into walls and tables. Nursing kicked shins, broken fingers, rope burns twisted into flesh.

“Beg me,” Ripper demands, and this time it’s not a game.

There’s no more goading. He tries to please him, soothe him, but Ripper laughs and laughs and laughs. “Fag,” he says, when Ethan’s cleaning, and beats him when the floor’s too wet.

Their group splinters, Philip, Thomas and Diedre locked in their own little dance, with Randall stoned out of his skull. The one thing they still share is Eyghon.

Ripper says he holds them back, sets the boundaries too tight. “Ethan, this was your idea.”

Ethan looks at him and nods. Closes his eyes.

Eyghon fills him to his core. With their strongest magick gone, the others barely anchor him, and Eyghon wastes no time teasing.

The strength of 10,000 years – it’s not something Ethan will likely forget. But with all joinings, it’s give and take. Ethan can use his body’s agony against it, and gets to drive the monster out.

It’s magister level magic.

He spends three days recuperating, head buried in Ripper’s lap.

After that, they really try, but there is no pleasure without pain nowadays. Even the softest caress makes all Ethan’s tendons burn, and what difference is there then, between kissing his lips and biting them? If kissing his thighs makes him flinch, if licking him out makes him weep – why not, why not just part his legs and split him open, have Ripper inside until he whimpers, the man working with all his strength – and he is so, so beautifully strong. To come in a mess of writhing and pain, tangled limbs and battling tongues is such sweet, sweet agony…

What he doesn’t understand is the look in Ripper’s eyes. He tries to kiss it better – yours, yours, always – but where the fire burnt are pits, Ethan’s pain seeping into his face. After sex, he leaves the bed without a word.

Then, one night, there’s magic, cold, clinical and structured, cutting right through Ethan’s soul.

“Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi eradicare…”

He stumbles out of bed and finds Ripper kneeling in their living room, clutching a crucifix and tirelessly chanting the exorcism prayer. Ethan wants to run, protect him – if only he could feel the demon, he has never, never not known what they’re dealing with. But then he sees Rupert’s shoulders heave, sees the tears stream down his face, and sees him press the crucifix against his own arm, covering the mark of Eyghon.

“Exorcizo… exorcizo te…”

The crucifix falls and Ripper crumples, sobbing like his heart will break. Ethan kneels beside him and pulls him close, _te absolvo, absolvo te,_ whispering words that are both magic and forgiveness. And so they kneel, and tremble, and sleep in each other’s arms.

That doesn’t mean they stop.

Ethan dives into the spells; Ripper shies away; focusing on gigs, drugs, music or anything else that’ll get him out of the house. It’s no use. They’re at each other more than not, and Ethan spends most days in a haze of gin and painkillers.

On those days, he dreams.

Eyghon dwelt with gods, Seth, Kali, the three faces of Hecate. But they all demand worship. Ethan’s only god has green eyes and tousled hair.

There’s Janus, too – still, he won’t go where Ripper cannot follow.

In lucid times, he tries to make him. Tells him there are better spells, more powerful, less primitive. But Ripper only serves his mark. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t cope.”

To hell then with lucidity. They conjure on, and everybody’s highs get ever higher. No one stops to wonder why.

In their dreams, they walk with Eyghon.

And when it goes wrong – there was only ever _when_ , not _if –_ the two of them pick up the pieces. Ethan’s hardly even shaken - Randall’s a fuckwit for trying to conjure Eyghon stoned – but Ripper spends the whole night on the verge of throwing up.

At home, he drinks a ton, but there’s no outburst. He just sits there, nervously rubbing his eyes. Ethan takes both his hands in his, begging him to talk.

“That thing – Eyghon– it used me… to... to wear you down… I -God, Ethan…”

Ethan holds him as he cries, but then whispers of the worlds he’s seen, the hell they’ll raise. There’s anarchy, and then there’s _them._

But Ripper shakes his head. “Randall’s dead.”

So’s King George.The body’s gone, there’s nothing to prove – what they’ve done isn’t even illegal. A glimmer of hope lights Ripper’s eyes as he says this, and when they kiss, it’s just like before.

Then Ripper sees the marks on Ethan’s neck.

“For fuck sake.”

Ethan tries to brush him off, but one sharp “Hey!” from Ripper makes him lower his eyes.

“You should go to bed.”

One soft kiss on his temple and that’s exactly what he does, almost purring with contentment when Ripper joins him later.

When he wakes, the bed is cold.

Next to him, he sees his own face, cut out of one of Ripper’s photos. On the back, there are a few scribbled words.

_Off to kill demons. Don’t follow me._

_Rupert_

Desperate weeks in Oxford follow, but the Council is too heavily protected for Ethan to do much of anything. He sees him, once, a tweed-clad nancy, but now Rupert drops his gaze.

Ethan spends the next three years summoning every demon he can throw at him. Kill that, loser.

(Some become his business partners. Others, decent drinking mates.)

At night, he dreams of Ripper’s fists.

And whimpers.

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> This story is possibly not canon-compliant with the comics, but then the comics themselves aren't always altogether canon-compliant with the series...


End file.
